no flaws when you're pretending
by Ivory Muse
Summary: Life is suffering; fortunately, she has some say in who will suffer. - clove
1. the beginning of the end

**title:** no flaws when you're pretending

**author:** ivory muse

**rating:** t, verging on m. depends on your gore tolerance, though nothing's horribly explicit. plus, clove's mind is a creepy place.

**genre:** drama/horror

**characters:** clove, cato

**summary:** life is suffering; fortunately, she has some say in who will suffer. - clove

**a/n:** my somewhat rambly interpretation of clove's early years and the training of the careers. i might expand on this later if plot bunnies nibble my toes.

* * *

Her childhood is an enormous mass of grey- that's the bulk of what she remembers whenever her thoughts drift into that territory. The dull, rough grey of her tunic, the gleaming, deadly grey of her shuriken, the smooth, practically untarnished grey of the linoleum floor beneath her well-trained feet, the threatening, absolute grey of the barbed-wire fence that encloses her within the compound. A bleak, utilitarian color, perfectly suited to the facility she has been raised in, one designed to take wide-eyed children fresh off their mother's teats and turn them into hardened warriors who can kill without wringing their blood-soaked hands.

It's a slow process, but they have plenty of time.

So she dedicates herself to following orders because there's nothing else here but schedules and uniforms and marching in place. She's told to run six miles a day and she does it, she's told to practice throwing knives at a punctured wooden target until she can barely lift her arms and she does it, she's told always think about how she might best serve her district and she does it like a little machine, constantly in unthinking motion. Disobedience simply never occurs to her. She does not know what it means.

Then one day she's seven and deemed old enough to begin fighting against actual people, and she discovers that by waiting for precisely the right instant to strike, she can force a boy twice her size to his knees. Everybody else is clumsy, making such elementary mistakes- their steps are awkward and lumbering, their movements erratic and hesitant.

Her teachers praise her with cold-lipped smiles and force her to work all the harder.

When she's twelve she becomes eligible for the Hunger Games, but not a soul in Districts One and Two takes the reaping seriously, and not even the most prodigious twelve-year-old is ever chosen to volunteer. Instead, she watches the televised gore and horror and hopelessness with stoic indifference. What does it matter to her if pawns on a playing field suffer? They were weak and soft and deserved swift elimination.

Fourteen is when she realizes that she loves pain- not feeling it, of course, she's not some kind of masochist, but inflicting it upon her hapless victims makes her feel a sort of sick glee. Sniveling girls with slack grips on their wooden weapons, callow, arrogant boys who barely consider her worthy of their blows, teenagers that should be safe in their homes, not forced to murder on demand- it's all blended adrenaline to her, the rush of power as her opponents crumple to the ground. She especially relishes when she can see the fruits of her labor, the blood and bruises painting translucent skin in blue and red and green and yellow, forming twisted rainbows. Eyes on the prize, eyes on the prize and it's all worth it in the end.

At fifteen she pierces her way through every-single-fucking-competitor and even nicks a few jugulars while she's at it and wins her place as female tribute- next to Cato, a hulking almost-man who resembles an inferno when he swings his sword. More silver-tongued praise (_such a CLEVER girl, such a STRONG girl, such an OBEDIENT girl, try not to notice that you've broken the bank and this is your half-assed reward, darling_) but it doesn't fucking matter anymore. She's the best and she has rusty stains imprinted behind her eyes and beneath her fingernails and on the tips of her blades to prove it.

That's why on reaping day she puts on the ostentatious lavender dress she's been given and marches off towards her age group, trussed up like a goose for slaughter. When their nauseatingly enthusiastic presenter (_now, boys and girls, let's not forget about your blood debt to the Capitol!_) announces that some sickly child of thirteen who's never even been through the academy is to bring glory to District Two, her hand whips through the air before the chit reaches the podium.

As she ascends her throne, luxuriates in the crowd's deafening cheers, she does not notice her parents' nervous faces or the forced quality of some cheerful expressions. This is her place, and there is no room for doubt.

She's eleven, watching an opponent bleed out with a steady, experienced gaze. She's ten, doing lunges with burning legs under her teachers' harsh tutelage. She's six, wrapping her inexperienced, chubby fingers around the handle of a knife for the first time. She's two, a naive, loved girl who knows nothing and yet knows everything.

Clove throws her head back and smiles like the sun into the cameras' harsh glare.


	2. lipstick and misunderstandings

Her mother and father visit while she's in 'protective custody'- the Peacekeepers have sorely misinterpreted the constitution of the average District Two tribute if they think she's going to make a run for it now.

She doesn't expect anyone. Her teachers are not sentimental, and won't bother to see her off- she has never been close to the other students at the academy, either, mainly out of self-preservation. Those to whom you are close are remarkably likely to plant a knife in your back. So she sits on a hard wooden chair in the designated room, examining her fingernails. They're broken, with unkempt cuticles and ragged tips. She scowls, holds them up to the dim light, scowls again. Imperfection always rankles at her.

Suddenly, the iron door swings open with a soft creak, and her parents are there. Fortunately, they aren't crying- it would seem artificial and cheap, a ploy for her sympathy when she has none to give.

The two of them gather awkwardly around her chair for a few moments, unsure of what to say. Are condolences or congratulations on the tips of their tongues? She can't tell.

Mother smoothes her already immaculate skirt- red like blood, red like pride. "We're very proud of how far you've come, Clove. The best in the district! I'm sure you're looking forward to seeing the Capitol." False cheer emanates from her strained words.

They've been muttering the same bullshit at every academy-mandated yearly get-together since she was four years old.

Her father breaks in, now that he doesn't have to make the first move. "You use a bow and arrow, don't you? Make sure to grab one at the Cornucopia before the others do."

Never has she wielded a bow and arrow in her life, and the Cornucopia is where half the contestants get slaughtered before they've spent an hour in the arena. Yet somehow she doesn't see the point in correcting him.

Instead, she forces her lips to curve upwards, but ends up grimacing. She felt far more at ease as a public spectacle than in here, with perfect strangers attempting to learn their daughter by heart in the space of a few minutes. Finally, Clove just nods.

"You're allowed a token to take with you," Mother says, pulling a tube of lipstick out from her pocket. "I know it's not much, but it'll remind you of home."

She's tempted to throw the stupid thing into her mother's unblemished, generic face, because she has no home besides the training center, and she fails to see how cheap rouge is supposed to jog her memory of the place.

"Thank you" is what comes out of her mouth.

"We'd better go," Father interjects. "Our time is almost up." Of course, he's probably in as much of a hurry to get this over with as she is.

There are a thousand things she is tempted to say, none polite, all true. They stop at her teeth.

* * *

**a/n:** this story will not leave me alone, so i've decided to continue it. yes, clove has a mood whiplash this chapter.


	3. resting on your laurels

She's never wanted for anything, to be honest. District Two is worlds away from District Ten- a darling of the Capitol as opposed to its laughingstock- and the academy is not without resources. Though rations could be reduced for the smallest of infractions, there's always been food in her belly and clean clothes on her back, no matter how drab. The games are an industry. Tributes that are well-fed are stronger and faster than emaciated urchins, so they win nine times out of ten. After their victories, the Capitol bestows their district with surpluses of grain and oil- there's a hefty return. Since she began to show prowess in knives, she's been allowed certain small privileges- imported foods like oranges, gel soap instead of the hard, gritty kind- to keep her running towards a carrot on a stick.

That doesn't stop her from gaping like a loon once she sees what kind of accommodations the train offers.

"Over here, you'll find your humble quarters! No, _yours_ are down the hall, Mr. Hadrianus- we don't want you two to form that close an alliance!" the presenter chirps, winking suggestively. Flavius Dangle is the most idiotic human being Clove has ever had the misfortune of encountering, and his flippant attitude makes her fingers itch for a blade- must he treat a contest to the death as though it's a soap opera?

"I've walked further," Cato shoots back, clearly irritated.

Flavius' grin is still plastered onto his face, but Cato's glare is causing it to flicker as poorly-lit candle would. "Only a joke, there!"

"I don't like jokes," he replies, storming off.

She's not sure whether to be on her guard or view this as a bout of teenage impetuousness. The first option is the more rational, in this situation. If thinks he has a chance of getting an easy screw, she'll make sure he ends up fucking one of her stilettos, non-violence regulations be damned.

Flavius mutters an obscenity under his breath in his silly, affected Capitol accent. Then he schools his features and turns back towards her. "Make yourself at home, of course!" he says, much more bombastically. "Take a shower, change your clothes! Dinner is at seven-thirty sharp, so don't be late!"

After pushing the door open, she's struck dumb. There's three rooms, really, which is three more than she's ever had to herself. Soft wall-to-wall carpeting, velvet armchairs, embroidered quilts… never has she been allowed such indulgences. Experimentally, she pulls open a drawer in the bureau to find scads of tunics in various colors, which seem to be her size.

She takes a hot shower in the gleaming bathroom (experimenting with the various buttons) and pulls on a periwinkle shirt and grey pants. Still, she can't think of why she's being given all of this- it must be enormously expensive, and she doubts that the Capitol is providing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Or maybe this is perfectly normal to them, and it's only she who finds it extravagant.

Feeling inferior- or indebted, for that matter- isn't something she's used to.

Oh, who gives a shit, really? If she grew up without luxury, it only means that she won't squeal and squirm like some of the District One tributes when faced with dirt or insects or the dead.

Forcing the niggling doubt to the back of the back of her mind, she passes through numerous corridors and enters the lavishly furnished dining car. Their mentors are there- Brutus, who is taller than even Cato and looks twice as menacing, and Enobaria, who won her games by ripping the competitors' throats out. Good; at least they'll be useful, not deadweights she'll have to work around. She's seen the other districts' pathetic representatives. Morphlings that can hardly string a sentence together, crazy Annie Cresta babbling on about seeing her ally decapitated, drunken Haymitch Abernathy sicking up all over the stage- as long as these two have an idea, however vague, about how to succeed, she'll listen.

Cato has washed his sunlight hair- it glistens beneath the crystal chandelier. A stupid thing to notice, but then again, she's always been observant.

She takes a seat across from Enobaria, who leans forward slightly. "You're Clove Asina. A knife user, Cato says. I'm one myself- shame there weren't any in the Cornucopia the year I went in. I had to improvise." Her teeth are capped with gold and filed to surgical points. She can immediately tell that this is not a woman she'd like to tangle with.

"That's right." No need to volunteer extra information until pressed.

Enobaria lets out a short, barking laugh. "The silent type? Never mind. Once you win the games, other people will do the talking for you."

"Once she wins? You sound pretty certain," Cato interjects, violently spearing his filet mignon.

"_I'm _pretty certain myself," Clove replies. It's a piss-poor move to alienate a potential comrade right from the start. She really couldn't care less.

"We'll see," Brutus says in a low, hardly audible tone. "Is Flavius off sulking in his room? I'm not complaining, but the Capitol won't be very happy if we've wounded his feelings."

Cato smirks without any warmth. "What does it matter if this Capitol's happy with us?"

Fortunately, Brutus isn't the sort to take condescension lying down. "With that kind of attitude, you'll be lucky if you don't completely repulse every sponsor. Whether the Capitol's happy can mean the difference between life and death- but if you'd like to pretend that you're entitled to a victory, feel free."

That shuts Cato right up. Clove smiles vindictively into her glass of orange wine.

"If we can get back to what we started before Clove came in," Enobaria snaps. "The reaping videos. Watch all of them carefully, you two. Figure out who the real threats are."

She's been playing the weakling/threat game since she could first spar.

The results aren't too surprising. Marvel from District One might make a good ally- he looks strong and moves with the easy grace of a warrior- but the way the girl flirts with the cameras doesn't seem promising. Livia Ki from District Four, Xander Jordan from District Three, even Theodore Cava from District Seven (the same one that produced Johanna Mason, after all) could be useful.

A few tributes stick out in her mind, though. Sabina Heywood of District Five, who has a slender, cunning fox-face and copper red hair that will stick out from a mile away- her sister was reaped a few years ago and committed suicide by jumping into the arena before the gong sounded. A little twelve-year-old from District Eleven who looks like a malnourished bird, though the male is enormous and could pose some danger. And finally, some idiot volunteer, Katniss Everdeen, from Twelve whose sister originally got reaped. If she'd been from a high-ranking district, she'd understand wanting the glory for herself, but she doesn't stand a chance and likely knows it. Worthless sentimentality is motivating her actions, it seems.

There's fear in all of their eyes, she realizes- it brings them all together. Whether they're relying on bravado to save them or shaking as they face the cameras, they're scared.

She can work with that.

"This is hardly a challenge," Cato coolly states once the last tape has been played. "Take a look at them- terrified out of their wits. Only the other Careers will stand a chance."

"Don't get cocky," Enobaria warns. "Some of the terrified, underfed ones can turn vicious under pressure. Happens every once in a while." She narrows her eyes a tad, as though reminiscing.

Clove gives a brief nod, but finds herself doing the impossible and agreeing with Cato. She's been trained by the most rigorous instructors in Panem. How could a band of feeble, inexperienced children that no sponsor would look twice at possibly threaten her?

* * *

**a/n:** in which clove is arrogant, cato tries to act tough, and i waste time introducing tributes. next chapter should be less filler-y.


End file.
